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What a difference a year makes for Donegal. Organisation, high work rate and fitness they have in abundance now. It was decent game in Celtic Park, competitive throughout made it intriguing watch and I'll be surprised if the same doesn't happen for the final. Is it a gimmick for Philly McMahon to give the Man of the match to a player from a losing team?

Who'd he give it to? I switched over after..

Niall Morgan

I've been going to Down matches since the 80s and yesterday was nothing short of dreadful.

We were 2 points up with approx 15 mins to go v Armagh in an Ulster semi final and my main concern was, I hope this doesn't go to extra time.

If playing like that is what it takes to be competitive, it's not a price worth paying as far as I'm concerned, and judging by the size of the crowd, I'm not alone. Would there have been 2000 Down supporters in Clones yesterday?

I recognise that plenty will take positives from yesterday's performance and to a degree, I can see where they are coming from. Laverty done nothing wrong yesterday, he broke no rules as such but mother of God, the powers that be must take action sooner rather than later because as a spectacle that game yesterday is unacceptable.

And I don't think I'm looking through rose tinted glasses about games from previous era's, plenty of them were poor too. I know Jarlath Burns has put together an impressive looking task force to deal with the predicament football finds itself in, and I'm sure they can use yesterday's game as an indicator of what drastic measures are needed to cure our game.

Down are not alone either, a lot of counties employ similar tactics, at times we have played excellently under Laverty, Cavan away last year in the Tailtain cup was a great performance. But  I really do hope there are rule changes made to avoid what happened yesterday repeated. And even if we won yesterday, I'm sure I would be saying the same thing.

Do Down have the players to go toe to toe with Armagh? Should the ball be kicked aimlessly up the pitch to come straight back at you?  Down needed to sort out their defence and it looks like they are getting there. The forwards will hopefully improve

some people need to get real, Armagh have been playing consistently in the top 2 divisions for last few years, they've been in Ulster finals and later stages of all Ireland series. We've just got promoted from division 3, we couldn't win it this year or get out of it last year. We couldn't win last year's tailteann cup, that's the reality of were we are at.

But still some people think we should go toe to toe with them in a shootout. It might have been more entertaining but we would have lost by 10plus points.

The management and players had a plan to contain Armagh and keep the game close and it worked, a few missed chances ultimately cost us.

Down are definitely on an upward curve but to go to the next level we need to add quality especially in the forwards and that is easier said.

Let's guess the people spouting crap on here weren't even in clones today. The management had a plan in place to beat a top team and it nearly came off. A few missed chances proved costly in the end, but the players gave everything.

Maybe if a few more 'supporters' had turned up to get behind the team and lift them in the last minutes the way the Armagh fans did it might have got us over the line.

 

Great win for the hurlers yesterday, hopefully can get good run in the McDonagh cup

Great to see. Harte outfoxed by McGuiness again

Very poor performance tonight, a win is a win but two poor performances in a row is worrying. We're struggling to get scores and failed to get any sort of dominance with the wind in the second half.
Limped over the line in the end.

What are the dates for Ulster semi finals?poor show from down against a antrim team with serious injury list.

27th / 28th

Which side of the draw is on 27th and 28th do you know?

Down v Armagh (or Fermanagh) on 27th

Westmeath last game in league lose to Sligo, the next week league final beat Down (most would say deservedly), the next week lose Leinster first round to Wicklow, make sense of that.

How can McMahon not give Paddy Lynch motm.

to score 1-9 and not get motm is bit of a strange one, thought he was the clear stand out player

Think the man utd match is massive for Liverpool. If they win that I honestly can't see them dropping many points in the remaining games, spurs at home and villa away being the toughest, think Liverpool are still the favourites but utd is massive game now, a win and Liverpool will be hard to stop.

Derry to beat Donegal then Tyrone then Armagh just to win Ulster, compare this to Kerry or Dublin's run in the provincials. Derry be burnt out by time quarters come round.

Well done to mortified and well done to mod5 for organising

One of the best games in years and people still want to focus on the referee.
In games like this there's loads going on both on and off the ball, as a neutral I thought the referee had a decent game.

It was very clear. Down need to beat Armagh to compete in Sam this year...

need to beat Antrim first

Disappointing night, very poor performance especially in the second half. We looked miles away from being a top tier team, slow build up play mixed with poor defending.  Westmeath weren't great either and didn't even have to play great to win.
 
McGovern starting was a strange one after his performance last week but he wasn't the only one to have a poor night.